


A Way to Happiness

by AliceCarroll



Series: Soulmate AU [1]
Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Another Story spoilers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, M/M, References to Drugs, Soulmates AU, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 03:55:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14035629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceCarroll/pseuds/AliceCarroll
Summary: Rika is taken away from her soulmate, who is not going to hesitate on looking for her.





	A Way to Happiness

**Author's Note:**

> Here comes an idea I have been thinking about for a while now! It's told from different points of view, so I really hope you can catch up with all of them, but tell me if it's confusing!!
> 
> I think I really like the result, but if you can think of anything to improve it, just tell me in the comments :3 Feedback is always welcomed~
> 
> Thank you for reading :3

Everyone has a soulmate. There are people all over the world finding theirs, discovering colours, meeting in dreams, writing messages on their bodies, seeing what the other did, even if just for a second, following red strings... Red strings like the one attached to my little finger.

Mom always said that I had been born without a soulmate and that was why I was so wicked. But I knew I had one. Only I could see the red string.

I was transferred to a new school, and at the other side of the string there was Alana. And then our strings became visible to other people.

Alana was light, a light that casted no shadows, a light, the only light, that took away my darkness. She always stood out for me when I was bullied, but that never put her in the wrong spotlight. She was beautiful, she was popular, she was, after all, light.

They took away my light the day mom caught us kissing. She said she wasn’t surprised that my soulmate was a girl, that my love was wicked. A wicked love for a wicked, wicked, girl like me.

We moved and I learned to live with no light and to embrace my darkness.

With the years, the red colour of my string became fainter. And I was consumed by a world with no light.

V was like the sun. He was like a tiny mirror of the light Alana reflected, but it was more than I could have, more than I should have ever dreamed of. He had no soulmate. They had died at some point during his childhood and then on he had had the feeling that he hadn’t deserved one from the beginning.

I didn’t know where Alana was. The colour of the string continued fading, every year lighter, and I started to believe I didn’t deserve her light either. I knew I didn’t. I became but a bug which had been able to enjoy daylight, flying to towards the poor and motral light of a radiator.

I trusted Alana would be happy without me, that she would find someone that deserved her. Maybe another person with no soulmate, someone who could cherish her the way she was. Someone like V. Someone with no darkness.

***

When we entitle a single person with all our happiness, we are destined to part from it forever. Unconsciously, I had doomed Rika with the responsibility of having mine, and when her parents separated us, she took it with her forever, my heart breaking into a million pieces. I wanted to find her, oh, how I wanted to, but I was too young to undertake the task and had to wait until I grew up. Our string was becoming more translucent with time, and that scared me, but I knew I would find her.

It was this same determination which allowed me not to fall into a pit of sadness and desperation and to continue being that same light Rika had told me I was long before she left. This gave me strength to leave everything behind after high school to look for her. I renounced to my studies and my art to find my love, my soulmate.

I renounced to myself to have her back to my side, unable to understand that soulmates are not one split soul, but two that complement, not complete, the other. I was such a believer of a love that now I can call toxic, dependant, and that I was made believe was romantic, to realise I was throwing away my life, my dreams, my future, for a person that may not have existed anymore. At least not the way I had known her. It I had realised, maybe I would have been able to live cherishing the memory of the Rika I knew. Maybe I could have been made complete. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret looking for her. I regret believing that I was the one who could save her. Only she could save herself.

***

Rika was all I needed. More than I deserved.

I never got to meet my soulmate. I only know that one day I woke up in the middle of the night feeling that my world had fallen to pieces, and then on I stopped having glimpses of the world they saw through their eyes. Rika helped me stopping seeing my own world too. Sight, token that my soulmate and the love of my life took from me forever. I welcomed this doom. I deserved it.

I met Alana by chance. She was working at a café and when she served me my coffee, she asked me the same question she posed to everyone she encountered, even if just for a second:

“Do you happen to know Rika?”

It caught me by surprise, and when I replied I did, she started crying.

She didn’t believe me when I told her she had died, and then I understood she was her soulmate. I should have known Rika had one by the way she stared at her little finger when she thought I wasn’t looking. I should have known I was not destined to save her.

“Cherish the Rika you knew,” I advised her. “She is not that person anymore.”

“As long as this string exists, the Rika I knew will be there.”

She told me how the colour of the string had been fading, probably as Rika was consumed in her own darkness. It was probably my fault.

Part of me wanted Alana to remember her as she had known her. Full of light. I won’t deny it. That same part of me wanted to save her myself. I knew Alana could find her if she followed the string anyway and that I didn’t need to take her to her for them to reunite. It would have taken longer and been more dangerous for her than if I had taken her myself, but she was willing to take the risk. I could see it in her eyes. So I complied.

I should have known I couldn’t be to Rika what her soulmate was. As much as I loved her. As much as I adored her. As much as I had entitled her with all my life and happiness. I understood this when Rika recognised Alana in an instant when I took her to the place she had taken Saeran, her beautiful green eyes widening in surprise at her sight, her often hesitant arms flying to hers, to be embraced, to cry, to be forgiven. The pale red string became visible to everyone then.

I couldn’t hold back a smile when I understood Rika would be able to find the happiness I had been deprived of. Her real sun.

***

The scene unfolded before my eyes was devastating. I hadn’t been able to fully process what V was telling me over the phone, but I had gathered my men as he told me he needed my help. There was no room for happiness or relief, however, at my friend’s sudden display of his trust as my preoccupation for him invaded my thoughts. I put that feeling aside with a shake of my head and entered the car as Driver Kim took me to V’s current location.

All rational thought and understanding disappeared from my mind as I discovered Rika alive, crying on the embrace of an unknown woman that, of course, wasn’t her fiancé. Her soulmate.

***

I emptied the content of my stomach in the toilet as Jumin gave me the news. Rika was alive. I knew it. I had known it all the time.

Bonny rubbed my back as I vomited, holding my forehead when I needed it and whispering soothing words. I was lucky that she was my soulmate. I closed my eyes to prevent the tears from continue falling, though I knew she would encourage me to “cry and let it all out.”

“It’s going to be alright,” she said, and thought she didn’t know what had happened yet, I felt I could believe her.

We went to the hospital and she stood out of Rika’s room with Jumin and V. She gave me an encouraging smile before I entered the room, and I saw her offering Jumin and V some shortbread. I clung to the familiar image as I opened the door and saw someone cuddling my cousin. She startled, surprised, and got off Rika’s bed as I stood looking at them, numb. Then I noticed the string that linked their fingers and I knew she was going to be alright now.

***

Alana. I couldn’t stop repeating her name. Alana. She was everywhere, even after she left as the visiting hours at the hospital were over. Her scent was on my clothes, standing out even from the awful hospital smell, on the bed sheets, clinging to them as my remaining sanity tried to hold on to my brain.

Alana had come back and the light with her.

***

Rika’s recovery was a long and exhausting process. While she stayed at the hospital, V helped me finding a place to rent for her and me to live together. He even gifted me with one of his pieces. His pieces talked of her.

She was too consumed by darkness and despair. Some nights I cried myself to sleep believing that she would never recover, but I found the strength to continue fighting for both of us. I found it in art and Saeran.

Saeran had been saved from his mother by Rika. Saved from Rika by me. We found him in a cell when we went to see Rika, thin, pale, scared and drugged. The poor white-haired boy hugged V when he saw him, his ember eyes full of tears shouting for help.

“Did you know he was here?” I had asked him.

“Yes.”

I would never forgive him for that.

Saeran told me Rika had tried to make him hate his brother. I asked V where his brother was. He told me he wouldn’t tell me, that he couldn’t tell me, so I decided to take care of Saeran after he was released from the hospital and Rika was still in there. I would help him looking for his brother if no one else offered their help.

***

Bonny saved me from nightmares. It had always been like that. We found each other in dreams and spend out nights together in any place we wanted to. We often were to the Scotland of her memories. Those nights, we liked having some tea at her back garden, the unusual Scottish sun bathing and warming our faces in a static sky.

“She’s going to be alright,” Bonny said, my head on her lap, and I looked up at her. “Her soulmate is helping her.”

“She is saving her as I couldn’t,” I corrected her and she shook her head.

“She is helping her saving herself. And you are helping too.”

“How?”

“Showing her she’s not alone.”

***

I could not imagine the pain of losing a soulmate, less so, the pain of losing also the woman you had learnt to love. It was difficult to forgive V’s lies, but, as his best friend, it was more difficult to see him break. I had to provide him with the support he needed.

“If it’s of any consolation, I think she really loved you. In her own wicked way, but she loved you.”

“I know,” V replied.

Could that be called love, though? Maybe some years before the incident I would have truly believed so, but after finding Hyun, my soulmate, I knew that was a lie. I didn’t know why I had said that. I guess I just wanted to say anything to comfort him.

***

She was painting flowers on my wall. I had told Alana I liked flowers and she was a painter, so she had decided to do so. She would also pain clouds on my ceiling. They wouldn’t move. They would be fake. But at least I would have them.

She wiped her brow and she didn’t know it, but she had left a pink trail of paint on her forehead.

“When will I see my brother?” I asked her.

“Soon,” she replied. “We are looking for him.”

“Why did he leave me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Will you leave me too?”

It took me a lot of my strength to ask this without crying, but I thought if I did, she would definitely abandon me forever. She stopped painting to look at me with a surprised expression. I hoped I hadn’t annoyed her.

“No. I will never leave you.”

“We are not soulmates.”

“We don’t need to be soulmates to love each other.”

She stepped down the stairs and hugged me and I felt save. I cried.

***

 _We don’t need to be soulmates to love each other_. It was true. I loved Saeran. I had loved others. Rika loved V. Saeran had made me realise that there were more people in which you could trust to help you. Whom you could trust with your happiness.

“Pink looks good on you,” Saeran said when he stopped crying. I dyed my hair pink and everything seemed more colourful.

***

I looked up at Alana as she served me some coffee. I was wary of her. She was Rika’s soulmate, but soulmates made mistakes too. I didn’t want my cousin to break again.

“She’s coming back today,” she said with a shy smile.

“Can you really take care of her?” I asked her.

“Will you help me, Yoosung?” she said, sitting in front of me.

And then I thought we may be alright with time.

***

I fought her. I couldn’t help but fighting her. I was scared that when her light took away my darkness there would be nothing left of me. But she saw much more than my darkness.

She was not the most patient person. She would leave the house, taking Saeran with her, in a fit of rage when I upset her, which was most of the time. When she did, Yoosung would come with that girl and they made sure I wasn’t left alone. I was grateful.

Things got better. Alana made things alright. I wanted to stay in that alright state forever. I wanted to stay in a limbo in which Alana was about, just about, to save me. That way I could live with her while still embracing some of my darkness. That way I didn’t have to do anything.

I knew Saeran was scared being with and without me. That upset me. Sometimes I got mad at him. I had saved him after all. He should be grateful. Some other times, I felt the weight of guilt wash over me. He had trusted me and I had hurt him. Manipulated him. I had tried to break him.

Alana made it alright. Saeran adored her and she was like a mother to him. Like a shield. She protected him from me. She talked me out of my rage against Saeran when I felt it, and I never hurt him again. She talked me out of ending with my life when the guilt became too unbearable.

Alana was balance. She was everything I needed. Everything I wanted in my life.

***

There was only one thing that saved me from darkness. My other half.

I didn’t believe in soulmates. I had seen them, the couples, the love, soulmates finding each other. I had seen the words written on my own skin, felt the times they got hurt. I even had that small scar on my knee due to a fall I had never suffered. I didn’t know who they were, but that was alright. I didn’t need them. I needed my brother.

I thought his memory would be enough to live with until Jumin informed me that he had been found. I was not ready to see him, though. I was not ready to face Saeran.

One day, I forced myself to be ready. I couldn’t run away again.

He was with that woman. They waited for me at an ice cream store and I cried when I was finally in front of him. My brother hugged me again and I cried. The woman pretended she was looking at her phone and my brother cried.

Nothing mattered. We were together again. We were family.

***

I knew I didn’t deserve them, but it was still painful watching them go.

The twins, Alana and I had never got to live like a family. If Alana was missing, the balance went away with her. We never fought, we never told each other mean words, and we never reminded each other of the pain we had inflicted –I had inflicted– but all those unspoken reproaches hanged on a suffocating air, asphyxiating us, breaking us. We couldn’t be without her, but she couldn’t renounce to her university life. We loved her, so we understood.

They went away on April. The sun was high in the sky and the trees were in bloom. That was the time I apologised. And I saw the light.

They hugged Alana and gave me a quick embrace before parting to university in America. I knew they were going to be alright. They were strong.

Alana held my hand and led me back inside. We were alone at home now.

***

The twins going away brought sadness and calm to our house. The mornings became lazier as Rika and I stood in bed until our stomachs growled in hunger, we spent the tedious hours of the long evenings painting or going for long walks, and we stayed up until late. She liked listening to me playing the guitar during the slow hours of the evening as I drank some wine at the light of candles or the chimney if it was winter. She liked simple things. She had always liked them.

I never knew if Rika had been able to be happy. She seemed happy when she looked at me, when I talked to her, when we brushed our hands together. She gave those happy kisses in which she smiled and giggled, she gave happy, warm hugs, and she hummed happily when she made me breakfast. Nevertheless she stared blankly at the sky sometimes, she stared in melancholy at some blind spot of the room, seeing things I couldn’t see, remembering things no one could imagine, and I never knew what she was thinking about, what she was feeling. I lived for her happiness and she lived for me.

It was not idyllic. It was not what we had always wanted. It was not the happy resolution we would have had if Rika had never been taken away from me, if V hadn’t lost his soulmate, if the twins hadn’t been separated, if Yoosung had never been made believe he had lost his cousin, if I hadn’t looked for Rika. But today, as we sit on the grass, her head on my lap, the sun warming our bodies, and I see the red, dark red string linking our fingers, I realise I would never change what we have. What we are. The way we have made to happiness.

**Author's Note:**

> I may write additional stories for Jumin and Zen, Yoosung and Bonny, and maybe even for the twins, so tell me if you would like to read them >.<
> 
> Check more content in my Tumblr!: https://makachan88.tumblr.com/


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